Wedding craziness. RTW trip craziness. Getting used to not being in Amsterdam craziness. I hope to be back ASAP to provide a little update but no guarantees ;) we will be soaking up these next few weeks as much as possible.

Lately, I've been enjoying this beautiful lil love snap Emma took of us a couple months ago during our Parisian picnic ;).

October 23, 2013

Yay! Christian's dad and best friends are in town! While they are off exploring Southern California, my sis and I have been checking wedding stuff off the list...we leave for Mexico in 4 days!!!

One thing we checked off the list a couple weeks ago was my bachelorette party (aka the rach-elorette party)!

Actually I flew into California from Amsterdam on Thursday night and took off for San Diego the next afternoon. My friend Smitty and I sipped on champagne upon the Pacific Surfliner bound for San Diego, met my sisters and some more friends for some brewery-hopping in San Diego and got to sleep early to prep for the next morning.

The next day, my friends had strict instructions to take me to breakfast while some others prepped the party house. Julie rented a house for us in Ocean Beach just a short stroll from the beach and the bars! Once we got to the house, we chilled in the backyard, looked at the photobook prepared by everyone, sipped on local beers, champagne, and munched on all kinds of goodies from Trader Joe's (yum!).

The rest of the day was a blur of barhopping, fish tacos, gummy bear shots and 'Rachael jeopardy' hahaha! Unfortunately jetlag got the best of me around 9PM. But not until after I saw that my brother-in-law Mike prepared the world's largest charcuterie (cheese and meat plate)--one of my favorite things!

On the bright side, going to sleep early meant that we were ready to take on Pacific Beach on Sunday! But first, Chef Mike did it again and him and his two buddies came and cooked all of us breakfast burritos from scratch!

I loved my bachelorette weekend so much that I didn't return back to Orange County until Tuesday. I had never been to Ocean Beach before, but you bet we'll be back!! With all of my closest ladies in one spot and with the beach right down the street it was the absolute perfect welcome back to California after almost 6 years in Amsterdam.

October 18, 2013

Wow it’s hard to believe that it’s been 2 weeks since I left Amsterdam! With catching up with friends, hanging out with my family, my bachelorette party and spending the last weekend in Portland, Oregon, these last 2 weeks have been pretty busy! But more on my sweet Cali bachelorette party later ;).

Last weekend I spent a few days in Portland visiting my best friend’s dad. It was a bittersweet weekend which was spent sharing our favorite photos, talking and laughing about funny moments with Julia and exploring waterfalls decorated with colors of the autumn. I can’t believe it’s been 6 months since she passed away but I knew I wanted to pay her dad a visit as soon as I was back in town.

I never knew just how amazingly beautiful Oregon is! And Portland…oh man…don’t get me started. What a cute city…and everyone is just so damn friendly and happy! I spent several hours sipping on Portland’s famous Stumptown coffee at cozy coffeehouses while I trip-planned, wedding-planned, life-planned and just enjoyed the fact that I had no where in particular to be except in that café sipping on some java. As an extra special treat, I joined my Amsterdam friends, Liz and Carly, for dinner at Oven & Shaker. I’ll be seeing them (very!) soon at our Mexico wedding in just TWO WEEKS! EEEEP!

October 1, 2013

So what's better than starting the weekend teaching your Dutch co-workers how to play beer pong, having two random warm sunny days (when it clearly should be Fall by now), moving everything out of your first apartment which turned out to be much easier than anticipated and munching on homemade chicken tandoori samosas and stroopwafel cheesecake at your favorite food market all on your last weekend in Amsterdam?

Well let me tell you: getting a text message from one of your coolest friends ever which says something along the lines of 'we rented a boat, champagne is cold, see you at 4 o'clock.'

What a perfect last weekend in Amsterdam, topped off with boating around the canals (as their wedding gift to us!) with one of our absolute favorite couples on Earth! I will never get tired of these canals...or friends like these :).